Color in Fairbanks, Three

If you've ever wondered
what it's like living in
a dry cabin
near the Chena River
in Alaska's Interior,
here's a little detail from my daily:

Orange colored gray water bucket sloshing.
Late December moon hanging in a ripened reflection of sun light
red,yellow,blue pulsing star in the East.
It is absolute quiet.
It's perfect circles of snow on tops of fence posts.
It's keeping winter boots unlaced for a wood or outhouse run.
It's a tower of power in the outhouse and walls of ice crystals.
It's wood smoke in your hair.
It's loading sleds of firewood.
It's that feeling of accomplishment after doing spaghetti dishes by hand.

We use 35 gallons of water each week for cooking, cleaning, dishes and drinking.We haul it in 5 gallon bucks and funnel it into a small RV holding tank. Water is pumped to the sink - hot and cold out of a faucet. It's a perfect little set-up.
Showers are taken at the gym and laundry is done at Forbes in North Pole, Alaska.
They have wi-fi and I once looked up from my lap top to see black boots and red pants -- Santa himself, suspenders and all, picking up his dry cleaning of holiday print shirts.
I am not kidding people.
It is well loved.

Color in Fairbanks, Four

Good find of the day: This little video

(my internet thread was: Superhero Designs via Laura Neff, song by Nova Scotia artist Tayna Davis)

". . . I come in to come out"

Lately my days stretch into early morning hours. My body responds to winter by turning me into a nocturnal creature. It is quiet in the cabin. There are Christmas lights glowing and heat from the stove. In this moment, everything is easy and understood. I am fond of these early hours as I witness the slow coming on of day. I am close to the center of this season, eleven more days and it will be winter solstice.

Ideas come around at this hour. There are long stretches spent staring at the moon. Outside, it is still and warm enough to linger without your skin burning with cold. I notice the sound falling snow makes on the hood of my jacket. I appreciate ice crystal's laced against our outhouse windows. The moon is so bright it throws shadows across the snow. Each is a gift. No detail is spared. Winter is rewarding me, I think.

There is a line in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that I have always loved. I found it my second winter in Alaska while living in an A-Frame Cabin off Kestrel Lane. I tore it out of the magazine and pasted it into a treasure chest of found words and inspired pictures - 2003's winter project. Her words reveal an intimate understanding of a powerful season.

"I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia, I come in to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting."

love on a waxing moon

It is like cold, Love is... finding with precision any exposed parts.

It is like heat, Love is... a siren song of warmth sung to frozen land.

It is like stillness, Love is... the quiet space of birds mid-flight.

It is like dark, Love is... in it's night, the moon burns bright and clear.

It is like light, Love is... pink musing of daybreak unfolding into afternoon.

It is like water, Love is... floating currents swirl downstream.

It is like breath, Love is... instinctual rhythm of in and out, in and out . . .

December

I have always loved the first day of a new month. There is a razor edge of possibility cutting the air. A beginning again. A clean dive into new stories, whispered to skies full of winter stars and midnight. What can I tell you of my Alaska winter on this first day of December?

There is a rawness to living in elements such as this, a harvesting of spirit. There is a rhythm to dry cabin living - the pulse of inside outside - wood for the stove, path to the outhouse, dumping of water, re-filling of water, hauling of trash, plowing of snow, warming of engines. The day will advance in a dreamy light, like oil riding water - memories from my youth of growing up in a cement city, discovering pothole pools of swirling iridescent color. Night returns quickly - cold snaps around in dark - I light candles and rest with warm wooden walls around me. There is something genuine and persistant about winter. The way she comes on un-apologetically and teaches me slowly how to love her. She shows me her lines and her attention to detail as she drifts snowflakes across my hands. She promises a passage of season, to unfold in a sure circle of graced time. First though, I must sail out, rippling blue moonlight into her long night and drift on dreams of returning light on new leaves...